Archaeological Reevaluation of a Portion of the Proposed Fall Line Freeway, Talbot and Taylor Counties, Georgia

In the spring of 1993, Southeastern Archeological Services, Inc., conducted an archeological survey along a portion of the Fall Line Freeway from the eastern edge of the city limits of Geneva to a location east of the town of Howard, including a corridor by-pass around the town of Junction City (Elliott 1993). The survey followed portions of the Fall Line Freeway corridor that was partially examined by a sample survey in 1986. The project areas lay within Talbot and Taylor Counties and constituted a 22.4 km long corridor, that included a 4.4 km long by-pass. The bypass corridor varied in width from 60-80 km and widening portions required about 30 m of new right-of-way. Surface reconnaissance combined with the excavation of 359 shovel tests located a total of 19 prehistoric and historic sites, three isolated finds, and three historic standing structures with no associated artifacts. None of the sites were recommended eligible for nomination to the NRHP due to one or more factors including: the lack of depth of artifacts (plow zone), the lack of context of the artifacts (disturbance from grading, cultivations, clear-cutting, razing, redeposition, and erosion), or the likelihood of the sites providing little additional, substantial information as the result of further archeological excavations. Because of the presence of the three historic structures or districts, the proposed routing of the highway was subsequently redesigned to avoid these structures. In the winter of 1993, Southeastern Archeological Services surveyed the 9 km of this new, redesigned right-of-way and discovered one archeological site and three isolated finds. This site is recommended not eligible to the National Register of Historic Places. Key information on sites found along both the original route and current route is presented in Table 1. In regard to archeological sites, it is the opinion of the principal investigator that no sites eligible for the National Register of Historic Places will be affected by the proposed highway construction.